The Mandan FCCLA Chapter competed at the State Conference on April 12-14 at the Ramkota Hotel in Bismarck.

Rebecca Helbling received a silver award for her Chapter service project display.

Nicole Geltel received a gold award for her Recycle and Redesign project.

Samantha Power and Gabrielle Wolf advanced to the National Competition on Washington DC for their Illustrated Talk project.

Savannah Miller was elected to serve as a State Officer for the 2015-2016 school year, and will also attend the National Competition in July.

]]>http://mandan-news.com/fccla-succeeds-at-state/feed/0Baesler names first student cabinethttp://mandan-news.com/baesler-names-first-student-cabinet/
http://mandan-news.com/baesler-names-first-student-cabinet/#commentsThu, 09 Apr 2015 19:00:35 +0000http://mandan-news.com/?p=19017Twenty North Dakota young people have been chosen as the first members of a Student Cabinet that will offer Superintendent of Public Instruction Kirsten Baesler their opinions and advice about educational opportunities and policy.

Baesler announced the names of the new Cabinet members Monday. More than 80 students from across North Dakota asked to be considered. The Cabinet will include students in grades four through 12. They were chosen to serve for 15 months.

“We wanted to have a group of students who reflect a variety of school experiences. Some have had very positive experiences, while others have been more challenging. Some have had a lot of school and community involvement, and others have not,” Baesler said. “We want to know what we can do to improve the school experience, build upon what is already working, and change what is not.”

The group will have its first meeting with the superintendent at 10 a.m. April 22 in the State Library on the grounds of the North Dakota State Capitol. Supt. Baesler will have students observe the legislative process during the Cabinet’s first meeting if the Legislature is still in session.

Cabinet members were chosen from all parts of North Dakota. A map showing the Cabinet’s broad representation from all areas of the state can be viewed on the Department of Public Instruction’s website.

The group includes 11 females and nine males, coming from five elementary schools, four middle schools and eight high schools in 13 North Dakota cities. They will represent both public and private education in North Dakota.

Applicants were asked why they wanted to join the Student Cabinet, and what they believed was the biggest issue facing students in North Dakota. They were asked to list school and community involvement and provide letters of recommendation.

The cabinet members were evaluated and recommended to Baesler by a planning committee made up of Department of Public Instruction administrators. Baesler and the planning committee made the final selections.

“Our focus is, we want to encourage more student engagement of all students, to ensure that every North Dakota student is receiving quality opportunities during their K-12 experience,” Baesler said.

]]>http://mandan-news.com/third-quarter-middle-school-honor-roll/feed/0Community helps raise money for schoolhttp://mandan-news.com/community-helps-raise-money-for-school/
http://mandan-news.com/community-helps-raise-money-for-school/#commentsSat, 28 Mar 2015 13:00:16 +0000http://mandan-news.com/?p=18816Students of Christ the King School want to thank the community of Mandan and their friends and family for their support in raising $7,420 for their school during the Catholic Schools Raffle, every cent of which will stay in their hands.

Students, staff and supporters of Christ the King School joined 86 other schools in Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota to add $1,019,695 to their collective coffers through six weeks of five-dollar ticket sales and donations.

“This program can do so much for our schools,” Harald Borrmann, Catholic United President, said. “Not only can we open doors with new technology and tools in the classroom, in some cases we can literally keep doors open. For a group that cares as much about Catholic schools as we do, I can’t tell you how rewarding that is for all of us.”

Catholic United Financial covers all of the Catholic Schools Raffle’s costs, so that every participating school can keep 100 percent of the proceeds from their ticket sales. Catholic United also provides some incentives for the top ticket seller and classroom at each school, and the top schools among the whole field. Based on tickets sold per student, three schools will receive a $3,000 technology grant in addition to their raffle earnings, top classes win a pizza party and the top seller will receive a $100 Visa gift card.

Because they pay no overhead to participate, all $7420 that Christ the King School raised can be used for any need the school faces.

During the March 19 grand prize drawing, winners of almost $45,000 in prizes, including a new car (or $25,000) and a $5,000 vacation package, were drawn from among nearly 200,000 tickets purchased during the six-week raffle. The event was broadcast live on the web and hosted by “WCCO This Morning” anchor Jason DeRusha.

The Annual Catholic Schools Raffle and Catholic United Financial have raised more than four million dollars for Catholic schools in Minnesota and the Dakotas since 2009, and will seek to achieve a third consecutive million-dollar year in 2016. Video, photos and a list of prize winners and results will be avaiable at www.catholicunitedfinancial.org/raffle

Three Mandan students will now be advancing to state competition after each receiving first place blue ribbon qualifier awards at the Southwest Central North Dakota Regional Science and Engineering.

Madison Goetzfridt, Eric Spilman and Juliann Spilman will now advance to the North Dakota State Science and Engineering Fair to be held in Grand Forks on March 26 and 27.

The Southwest Central North Dakota Regional Science and Engineering Fair was held at the Mandan High School Gymnasium on Wednesday, March 4. A total of 98 students from schools throughout the region exhibited projects at the fair.

Projects were entered and competed in 20 scientific categories. The regional fair had a senior division (grades nine-12) and a junior division (grades six-eight). The fair included participants from public and private schools. The senior division had 45 projects from 11 area high schools competing and the Junior Division had 53 schools from eight area grade schools.

Representing Mandan High School in the Senior Division was Madison Goetzfridt, Eric Spilman and Juliann Spilman. Their advisors are Julie Fleck and Ciera Kroh.

Science fairs are an opportunity for students to apply scientific method to conduct independent research. Each student designs and carries out independent research in the form of a project. The student’s project is displayed and they are interviewed to determine scientific merit at a science fair. Students who have been judged to have used scientific method properly, and who demonstrate a thorough understanding of their topic, advance on to the next level of science fair and are awarded prizes.

Along with the honor of advancing to the state competition, these students may receive special awards for their projects at the regional fair.

Madison Goetzfridt, MHS junior, won the Naval Science Award most outstanding project exhibit for her project entitled “Antibiotic Resistance: The Need for Speeding up Nature’s Microbe Machine,” in the Biomedical and Health Sciences category. She also won a first place Blue Ribbon State Fair qualifier award in the senior division.

Eric Spilman, MHS sophomore, won three awards for his project “Thermoelectrics: Electricity of Heat.” Eric’s awards included a plaque for Best Senior High Project in Energy: Physical category, U.S. Air Force Award for top project at the fair, and a first place blue ribbon state qualifier in the senior division.

Juliann Spilman, a MHS freshman, won six awards for her project entitled “Comparing Lake Water Quality.” Her awards were the 2015 Grand Champion Environmental Award presented by the Coalition for Conservation and Environmental Education, a plaque for Best Senior High Project in Earth and Environmental Sciences, top project that emphasizes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s mission, Stockholm Junior Water Prize for best water related science project, Association for Women Geoscientists Award for high standards of innovativeness and scientific excellence in the geosciences and the first place Blue Ribbon State Fair Qualifier in the senior division.

The N.D. State Science and Engineering Fair will be held at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. With only 16 students in the senior division being selected to advance on to the state competition, the selection process was very intensive. Mandan will have three students in the senior division competing.

]]>http://mandan-news.com/mandan-science-students-successful-at-regional-fair/feed/0Scholarship opportunities for local studentshttp://mandan-news.com/scholarship-opportunities-for-local-students/
http://mandan-news.com/scholarship-opportunities-for-local-students/#commentsTue, 10 Mar 2015 01:22:12 +0000http://mandan-news.com/?p=18598The Mandan Public School Foundation for Education is providing six $1,000 scholarship, one $250 scholarship and one $2,000 scholarship for 2015 graduating seniors planning to pursue advanced education or training.

The Basic Scholarship, $1,000, is open to students pursuing any field of advanced study or training.

The Educational Scholarship, $1,000, is for students pursuing a degree in education.

The Career and Technical Ed. Scholarship, $1,000, is for students pursuing a vocational degree/certificate.

The William Neff Scholarship, $250, is for students pursuing a degree in education.

The Mary Vogel Carrick Scholarship, one $2,000 and two $1,000, are for students with high financial need in order to attend advanced education/training.

The Carleen M. Porten Scholarship, $1,000, is for students who attended Mary Stark Elementary for at least three years, which included grade five.

The deadline to apply is April 2. Students must have a minimum 2.5 GPA to be eligible. All applications must include a copy of your high school transcript and two letters of recommendation. Letters of recommendation may be written by educators, coaches, extracurricular advisors, employment supervisors, clergy, etc. Persons providing recommendations are asked to describe their knowledge of the student’s responsibilities, involvement in school or community activities, and reasons for recommending the student for a scholarship.

Completed applications, transcripts and letters or recommendation must be submitted to the Mandan Public Schools Foundation for Education; P.O. Box 893; Mandan, N.D. 58554

Applications can be downloaded at www.MandanSchoolsFoundation.org, under the scholarship tab.

]]>http://mandan-news.com/scholarship-opportunities-for-local-students/feed/0Local students receive academic honorshttp://mandan-news.com/local-students-receive-academic-honors/
http://mandan-news.com/local-students-receive-academic-honors/#commentsMon, 09 Feb 2015 18:31:45 +0000http://mandan-news.com/?p=18308Displaying a great amount of intelligence and hard work, students from Morton County have gone on to succeed in a number of institutions for higher learning. Making the area proud, these students have gone above and beyond, and were recognized by their respective schools for academic excellence.

Topping the state, Mandan High School had the most students selected for the All-State band, of any high school. Submitted photo

Mandan High School had 35 instrumentalists and six alternates selected to perform with the All-State Band, Orchestra and Jazz Band. Mandan had the most students selected out of all the high schools in North Dakota. The All-State music festival will be held March 26-28 at the Bismarck Events Center.

The Mandan High School Robotics team, “Roboz Locoz,” competed in the regional FTC Robotics Competition on Saturday, Jan. 17, at the Bismarck Career Academy. Mandan student team members include Leslie Miller, Dale Spilman, David Hoffman, Hannah Ravnaas, Eric Spilman, Branden Byrum, Julian Spilman and Andrew Morgan. Helping the students engineer and program the team robot were National Information Solutions Cooperative mentors Andrew Cooper, Dwayne Cullen and Leif Olson. Mandan High School Science Club advisors who also helped with the robotics competition were Mrs. Julie Fleck and Mrs. Ciera Kroh.

During the competition, two teams work together to get as many points possible in order to move on to the final rounds. Scoring can be done by building a robot capable of knocking a lever over that holds up various sized balls. The robot has to be able to pick up the balls and place them in three goal tubes, ranging in height from a half meter tall, to nearly three meters tall. The robot also has to drag the goal tubes around the playing field and up onto a ramp.

The playing field is a large square areas with low walls, foam floor mats, a center holding area for the scoring balls, a ramp for each alliance, a parking zone for each alliance and three goal tubes for each alliance.

Other than scoring points during the rounds, teams can win awards for keeping an engineering book that contains detailed descriptions of designs, progress made, a materials list and a business plan for the team.
Opening day for the competition was on Sept. 23, at the Bismarck Career Academy. At that time, teams were introduced to this year’s theme, rules and playing field.

Dec. 6 was the first competition, in which teams from around the state were able to test out their original robot designs and practice running them on the playing field.

It was from that trial competition, or scrimmage, that the Mandan team realized that some modifications needed to be made to some parts of their robot in order to score more points during the final competition on Jan. 17. After the scrimmage, the Mandan robotics team made the necessary changes to the robots design and programming.

On Jan. 17, at the final competition, the Mandan robotics team was performing well until they encountered some electrical interference do to static electricity build up. The robot fell from the ramp, disabling the module responsible for the robots WiFi connections.

This event handicapped the robot and it was no longer able to run, making the team miss out on scoring during the next three rounds. Due to FTC’s promotion of gracious sportsmanship, another team Pierre, S.D., lent the Mandan team a new WiFi module and the game was on.

Throughout the rest of the day, Mandan was chosen by Pierre to be in an alliance with them for the rest of the tournament. The two teams, together, took second place – making Mandan fourth out of 16 teams.

Mandan robotics team also won first place in the Control Award for best programming of controllers, second place in the Think Award and third place in the Inspire Award.